Basic Baking Tools For Making Cookies
Do you know which baking tools are the most important when it comes to baking cookies? A baker is only as good as their ingredients and their tools.
Which Basic Baking Tools Are Needed
You just bought a brand-new dessert cookbook and have discovered the ideal recipe to assist you into making tasty cookies that you can impress your family and buddies with. Is your kitchen stocked with the proper baking tools for your cookie baking adventure? Here are a few basic baking tools that you will want to make sure that you have in your kitchen before you start your baking adventure.
The Right Measuring Cups
Yes, there are different measuring cups and you need to make sure that you are using the right one. Some measuring cups are designed specifically for dry ingredients such as sugar and flour. They will come in the different volume sizes and you scoop the dry ingredients into the cup, then use a straight edge to level the cup. Liquid measuring cups are clear, usually made of glass, and have measurements on the side. They are not designed to measure out dry ingredients.
A Good Flour Sifter
To end up with great cookies it is necessary that your dry ingredients, especially flour, be sifted to remove any clumps and chunks. A sifting process not just would break up the clumps but it aerates your flour, giving it added volume. This also makes flour and powdered sugar smoother and silkier, they are now easier to blend into your batter.
A Couple Of Good Spatulas
You can never have too many spatulas! This all-purpose tool seems a mix of a flipper and a spoon and can perform a huge number of kitchen tasks. Spatulas are essential in baking for blending batter, dough and frosting. They need to be sturdy because they will be doing the heavy mixing in a lot of cookie recipes. Some spatulas look like spoons, others look like hamburger flippers. Both get the job done really well. Spatulas are commonly made of silicone rubber or plastic and generally are not too expensive. Another nice feature is that you can usually toss them into the dishwasher for easy cleaning.
A Heavy Rolling Pin
When it comes to forming and rolling out your dough, having a good rolling pin is more useful than you may realize. Sure, your grandma always had a rolling pin but who seems them today? Experienced bakers will tell you that these are overlooked kitchen tools and that every baker should have one. Flattening cookie dough by hand is hard work and having a kitchen tool that does it easily is wonderful. Most rolling pins are made of treated wood, polished marble, stainless steel or very heavy plastic. You want yours to be thick, cylindrical and have two solid and easy to grip handles on each end.
Assorted Cookie Cutters
If your cookie recipe calls for you to make shapes, you need to have some good cookie cutters on hand. You can get really creative with cookie cutters, they come in an amazing assortment of shapes! After you have rolled out your dough (remember what I said about needing a rolling pin?) you need to cut out cookies and this is where you use a cookie cutter. They are usually made of stainless steel and the edge is sharp. Press down on the dough and the cookie comes up in the cutter. For holiday and special event you can get themed cookie cutters and then decorate your baked treats to fit the occasion.
Heat Resistant Oven Mitts
Baking means that you are dealing with a heat and some sort of oven. It only takes one nasty burn for you to realize that you never want that to happen again, so you look for excellent oven mitts. An oven mitt fits over your hands like a glove and will allow you to take very hot pans and trays out of your oven and move them around in your kitchen. Most of these mitts will have some type of insulation and will have surfaces that won’t conduct heat or burn. Don’t rely on a kitchen towel or some other make-shift tool to handle hot pans, you need sturdy oven mitts to stay safe and get your cookies safely out of the oven.
These are the basic kitchen tools that you will want when you begin your cookie baking trip. There are other utensils that you will want to look at, such as kitchen spoons and kitchen scales. You also will want to make sure that you have invested in some good quality baking sheets.
